Antonin, Human Documents: Liability for Political Offenses of Church Hierarchs. August 11, 1923

Original Source: Moskovskie izvestiia, 11 August 1923.

In trying to save amid the turmoil of revolutionary movements the pagan monarchist principle and its police-protected Black Hundred organization, the Church Council of 1918 created the Patriarchate. The expressions "by the grace of God" and "tie 'em and gag 'em" remained in circulation, except that they were transferred from the Imperial manifestoes to the Patriarchal encyclicals. That is why the refugee crowd abroad and the White-Guards outside Russia had such extraordinary sympathy for Tikhon. To them he appeared as none other than a twin brother of Nikolai II attired in priestly vestments.

The Council of 1918 opened with the consent of the Provisional Government, but was concluded under Soviet rule. What was the attitude taken by the new Patriarch towards the new political regime? Openly and irreconcilably Tikhon stood up not against the malpractices of one or another revolutionary personage, but against revolution as a whole, against the new principle of power as such, "in all its actual plenitude."' He did not recognize its living social truth, and therefore he did not recognize its right to existence. He was hostile to the "moral truth" of the new power and the new political idea.

According to Article 84 of the Apostolic Rules, a clergyman shall be liable to deprivation if he unjustly insults the representative of civic power (the "emperor" or the "prince"' - for in those days there were no presidents and commissars). In the year 1751 the Archbishop of Voronezh, Leontii, while passing through Moscow, celebrated a memorial service in the Archangel Cathedral in memory of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, during which he mentioned incidentally the then reigning Empress Elizaveta, Petrovna. For this he was deprived of his ecclesiastical rank. His slip of tongue was interpreted as an attempt upon the life of the Empress, the allegation being that he had with malicious intent celebrated a memorial or funeral service over her. Within our memory, Black-Hundred Moscow was wildly clamoring for, and eventually obtained, the deposition of the popular Priest Grigorii Petrov [a clergyman of liberal and reformist, but by no means revolutionary tendencies, some time before the war] for his social and journalistic activity and liberal spirit. His case was not conducted in a regular way. When the case was submitted to me for my opinion, I pursued the evidence in the case - some works of fiction by Petrov - and gave a report to the effect that I could find nothing criminal in it. Thereupon, the leaders of the Black Hundred movement, the presidents of the "Union of the Russian People," Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow, and Bishop Nikon (of the Holy Trinity Monastery), ran with slanders and calumnies to Nikolai II. The latter expressed his displeasure by asking Pobedonostsev: "Is it true that Bishop Antonin has been appointed judge in the case of Grigorii Petrov? What judge can he be if he shares his opinion?"' Grigorii Petrov was eventually expelled from holy orders. And none of the bishops raised his voice against the materially and formally unjust verdict of the Synod.

In such a way, while the law of the fist and the garrote was in force, the Black-Hundred people used to get rid of their spiritual opponents, of those who did not agree with them, in a rough and ready fashion without much ceremony, and with supreme disregard of "essence, as well as form." To depose a liberal clergyman was a correct and lawful thing. But when history turned upside down, when the place of Black-Hundred malice was taken by "revolutionary activity," and the clergy who were "inspired with sympathy for the revolution" applied, after the prescription of the Black-Hundred dispensary, a mustard-plaster to the back of the stubborn leader of Black Hundred Monarchism, the latter raised protests not only by suitable action, but even went so far as to question, as a matter of principle, the competency of the Church Council. His claim was that that Council had no right to try him for counterrevolution, this being solely within the province of the civic power. Why, in the time of Monarchism, did not the "Canonical" Synod entertain any doubts of its competency to try some of the clergy for tendencies that were not even really revolutionary, but simply liberal? And why, under the Soviet regime, are anti -government, genuinely criminal actions committed by clergymen, even of the highest rank, not within the competency of an ecclesiastical court? Do politically criminal offenses not touch to the quick the feelings and the conscience of the Orthodox? If Tikhon in by-gone days recognized the correctness of, Petrov's trial, and his deposition by the Synod for revolution, then he also ought to recognize the correctness of the judgment passed on himself under the Soviet regime for counterrevolution. Article 84 of the Apostolic Rules fixes the responsibility of a clergyman in regard to any given government: in China - to the heathen government; in Turkey - to the Mohammedan; in Spain - to the Monarchist; in France - to the Republican: and in Russia - to the Soviet government.

When in 1908, on January 26, Nikolai II said to the Chief Procurator of the Synod, Izvolskii: "Inform' whom it may concern that Bishop Antonin has to retire from his post,"' the Synod did not protect me, and did not raise an objection on the grounds of its non-competency. On January 28 the presiding member of the Synod summoned me and told me: "Apply for your discharge not later than by tomorrow, Tuesday; if you don't, you will be dismissed on Wednesday without such application." And on the same day the Procurator Izvolskii told me: "Make haste with your application for retirement, for some members of the Synod (the Bishops Serafim, and Germogen of Saratov) are cognizant of the Emperor's will, and will on their now account raise in the Synod the question of your dismissal." Thus, Bishop Antonin, for revolutionary sentiments, was under the Monarchist regime subjected to sanctions on the part of his ecclesiastical superiors. But after the tables have been turned, under the Soviet regime, Patriarch Tikhon, charged with counter-revolution, is beyond the pale of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

When Nikolai II, having heard the Procurator Sabler's private report on me after my six years' banishment, said to Sabler on December 22, 1913: "Well, I see that Bishop Antonin is a good man; see that you take him back into service." The holy fathers of the Synod, however, living up to the proverb "The King is merciful, but not the slave," could not forget their animosity, and could find no place to give me. At first they sent me to Ufa.

But two days later they remembered that the Monastery of Bereznia, recently founded by the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna, was in Ufa, and transferred me in a hurry to the Vladikavkaz diocese. When my health gave way, they made use of some pretext and finished with me: promising me leave to restore my health, they went back on their word, and discharged me. (Of the then judges the Metropolitan Pitirim. and Vladimir met with a tragic end; both of them have gone to Kingdom Come; but Tikhon, the Archbishop of Vilna, is now ... . When, by the grace of the Synod, I somewhat recovered from my sickness, and thought of gaining a livelihood by returning to my service, the members of the Synod who surrounded Tikhon (Arsenii, Kirill and Nikandr, my "friends" who served with me in Petrograd) told me, every one of them: "Oh, thou fool, could anybody give thee some work?"

Thus, according to the language of the old Church, a clergyman cannot be tried for counter-revolution by an ecclesiastical court. But under the

Monarchists, not only could a revolutionary clergyman be tried by an ecclesiastical court, but also a fire could be lit on the church floor, and in the name of the holy inquisition he could be roasted on a slow fire for many years. In the language of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Don this is called: "to administer the canonical blessing to the unblessed."

Source: Boleslaw B. Szczesniak, ed. and tr., Russian Revolution and Religion; a collection of documents concerning the suppression of religion by the Communists, 1917-1925 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959), pp. 203-205.